the vicar, casting aside his
black coat, did more real work than anyone. Then mother came into the
field with Cicely in her arms, and was welcomed with acclamations, and
forthwith seated on a royal throne of hay; then, under her watchful
eyes, the ambitious Ambrose worked feverishly, and threw his arms and
legs about like an excited spider. Then Nancy laughed at him, and David
pushed him down, and Pennie covered him with hay; and it got into his
eyes and down his throat and he choked and kicked, and mother said:
"That will do, children!" Then tea was brought out and laid under the
great oak-tree, and everyone's face was very red, and everyone was very
thirsty. And then the cool evening came stealing on, and a tiny breeze
blew, and the hay smelt sweet, and the shadows lengthened, and it was
bed-time just as things were getting pleasant.

Each time all this happened it was equally delightful, and it seemed a
pity when the field stood bare and desolate after the hay was carried,
shorn of its shadowy grass and pretty flowers; yet there was consolation
too in the size of the stack which the children had helped to make, and
which they always thought "bigger than last year."

Soon after this autumn came and made the orchard and woods and lanes
interesting with apples and nuts and blackberries; and then, after the
apples and nuts had been stored away, and the blackberries made into
jam, it was time to look forward to the winter.

Winter brought a great deal that was very pleasant; for sometimes he
came with snow and ice, and the children would wake up to find that in
the night he had quietly covered everything out-of-doors with a
sparkling white garment.

Then what could be more delicious than to make a snow man or a snow
palace?

Pennie, who was a great reader, and always anxious to carry out
something she had read about, inclined towards the palace; but the
others had less lofty minds. It quite contented them to make a snow
man, to put one of Andrew's pipes in his mouth and a battered hat on his
head, and stick in bits of coal for his eyes.

"Isn't he lovely?" Nancy would exclaim when all these adornments were
complete.

"Zovely!" echoed Dickie, clapping red worsted mittens ecstatically.

"I think he's rather vulgar," Pennie said doubtfully on one of these
occasions with an anxiously puckered brow; "and besides, there's nothing
to make up about him. What can you pretend?"

The snow man certainly looked hope